There are years when the river of malevolent e-mails, phone calls and online comments elicited by my reporting on the New Orleans restaurant scene strikes a unifying tone. One year that tone might be described as "irate," on another it could be "appalled." In the case of 2001, my first full year on the job, it would be fair to say folks were mostly "puzzled."

2010 was a year when reader disposition -- or at least the disposition of the handful of people who expressed their displeasure with stories I wrote for The Times-Picayune and nola.com -- turned starkly conspiratorial. It's tempting to see this development as a reflection of the national temperament. We live in an age, after all, when hackers unearth the most sensitive information of international governments with the frequency of Facebook updates, yet untold thousands still believe it's possible for the president of the United States to keep his true origin of birth a secret.

In light of this, it shouldn't come as too big a surprise when a reader reads into a favorable restaurant review and finds a web of intrigue and manipulative intent that makes grand presumptions about my power, personal wealth, age, place of residence and sexual orientation.

"We all know you have a thing for those young things," said the reader, deeply suspicious of my positive opinions expressed about the food at La Petite Grocery and Lilette. "You privileged Uptowners make me sick. I've got some news for you: There's more to life than Commander's Palace! Not that you care."

I'll refrain from addressing the inaccuracies contained in that snippet of a much longer voice mail, although family pride makes me feel duty-bound to correct an online commenter who claimed my life began as "a kernel of corn in my father's eye" in the state of Iowa. Let the record show that I became a kernel of corn in Minnesota, which, as any Minnesotan will tell you, is very different than (and some may say superior to) Iowa (although both are really good places to find corn).

The chorus of dismay over the fact that I was born in a place where Louisiana's indigenous cuisine counts as ethnic has died down in recent years. But that decline has coincided with a more than commensurate rise in the volume of general dismay. And at no time of the year is this outpouring of sentiment more abundant than after the release of Lagniappe's Fall Dining Guide.

My favorite response this year came over a week after the guide's publication on Halloween. It arrived in the form of a voice message from a woman who found this year's list of the Top Ten restaurants in New Orleans reason enough to call me "ignorant," "stupid" and "idiotic."

"What are you thinking?" she asked. "They're all making fun of you."

The message was the cherry on top of what amounted to the richest discussion about the state of New Orleans fine dining ever elicited by the Top 10. Much of it can be found in the comments stream below the Top 10.

As a writer and particularly as a food lover, I admire the passion that drives people to make their voices heard. People increasingly use personal opinions to insulate themselves from alternative points of view. The never-ending argument over which New Orleans restaurants are truly the best is a welcome antidote to that post-modern din. Even when the argument reaches a fever pitch, I find the subject matter pushes most involved toward genuine honesty. It may be impossible to be insincere about a fried boudin ball.

If the sentiments expressed in the post-dining guide comments -- coupled with those shared with me personally through e-mail and phone -- could be said to reflect the opinion of the dining public at large, we could draw these conclusions:

-- Those who don't adore certain restaurants (Galatoire's, Commander's and Cochon come up repeatedly) want to shut them down;

-- I am the only person in history who has ever received decent service at Lilette;

-- The discomfort with ranking a restaurant as casual as Cochon among the best in town rivals the supposed discomfort with the role government plays in our personal lives;